


We Got A Long Night Ahead, So Spill.

by Gevar



Series: An Anthology of Whimsical Musings. [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gevar/pseuds/Gevar
Summary: There’s a beat of silence tangled with disbelief. What are the odds two women crossed paths, each with a personal grudge against the press? Not very high. Marley scoots closer, lips pursed in thought. Elizabeth Hammer is a fake name, just like Melissa Gustin is.





	

“Shoot me,” he sneers, a smile sits on his lips, wickedly gleaming in the dark-coated room. He cocks his fingers as though he’s handling an imaginary shot gun.

“No,” she begs. She always begs.

He hisses, “Do it.” He demands, like he’s entitled to a bullet to his brain. A birth-right granted by a fate sealed in the rocks that is the grave of Warren Wainwright.

She shakes her head. Like before her words leave no impact on him. They’ve done this so many times, she lost count. And yet, the pain is real. Every time for the future plays out as it did in her lucid moments.

“Why not? You done it before,” he says, deep baritone echoes against the shrinking hallway. “All you need is to pull the trigger.” He makes that popping sound, “Like this.”

The bullet slams against his temple, brain matter flies all around her, like it’s raining blood. Soaks her periwinkle nightgown.

And she screams. Shrill of a mad woman, that it goes forever and endless. Until all that she hears is nothing. But a faint buzz ringing in her ears. Static. White noise.

He crumples to the hardwood floor, like he’s not a man of navy-toned physique. But a weightless feather without wind beneath its wings. And time freezes, like winter sweeping over the lake’s surface. His handsome face contorted into a grimace, his agony petrified.

“Warren,” flies out from her parched throat.

Alethea Cooper stirs restlessly; peace does not favour Alethea. And she wakes up. Drenched in her own sweat.

“Would you like a cup of water, dear?” a voice asks, harried and motherly. None of the iciness that she’s accustomed to.

Alethea squints for a clearer look. To no avail, she sees only outlines of a woman by her bedside. Her throat’s all sore, raw from the yelling she knows she committed as she tosses and turns on her bed. Alethea nods.

“Here you go,” the woman—not a nurse, definitely—says, hands her a glass of cool water. A simple skimmer dress, black and wrinkled from prolonged sitting, clings to the woman’s curves.

She accepts the glass, caution weighing heavily on Alethea’s shoulders—could she be one of Eleanor’s hires sent to keep Alethea on her toes? If so, this woman bears no hint of contempt that Eleanor had ingrained in each and every one of her employees.

Alethea drowns the glass empty, eyes the brunette in front of her, “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story, I’m afraid.”

Alethea thinks of Warren and his death mask lying in wait for her. Warren and his cruel words to twist the knife in her heart ever so gleefully. And she finds herself saying, “Do tell. I have all night.”

* * *

“Why should I? I don’t know you,” tumbles loosely from Marley’s lips, even before she has the chance to rein in her harsh words. Not that she could afford good manners, but lately people forget that she’s more than just the labels the press written.  

The woman on the bed sets her empty glass on the nightstand. Bottles of pills, sleeping pills, scattered over the rectangular surface.

It doesn’t take much for Marley to sense bitter disappointment building up in the frail woman. In all, she reminds Marley of Maggie when she’s not allowed to trips to the city with older boys.

“Well, I’ll say that you are not an employee of my mother-in-law, or the hospital. Not to mention, this hospital specialises in discreet treatment,” she gestures around her room, “this wing in particular is a favourite for the criminally rich with secrets to hide.”

“I don’t have any skeletons in my closet, if that’s what you’re implying,” Marley says, fiddling with the hem of her dress. While her words are truth, they’re not exactly liberating either. Not when the whole world thinks she’s a mastermind of evil sorts.

And her companion, all haggard, despite bearing patrician features—Marley’s unconvinced that she is what her clothes and room tells Marley she is; a socialite.

“Is that so? Seems like you harbours certain _secrets_ ,” she says, “takes one to know one.”

They lock eyes and lips metaphorically sewn shut, in silence and suffocating darkness.

Marley’s the first to break contact, tossing a glance outside the windows, partially covered by velvet curtains. Seems to her, the weather’s unkind to those in need to travel far.

No rooms were booked for an extended day trip for a guilty lady. Quite frankly, her feet hurts. Judging by the furnishing of this room, her companion comes from family with wealth that makes the Seymour fortune and fame insignificant by comparison. Cosier than the place she’s heading, for sure.

Why not take the advantage, the odds for a less bleak future is undecidedly grim. It is for her anyway. It won’t make much of a difference, just a small reprieve from aimless roaming down the hospital’s hallways until the sun breaks through the dark skies. Or the snow blankets doesn’t increase much than two inches.

“All right,” Marley concedes, takes a seat on the massive bed. And while her name is known to most, she rather keeps that piece of information to herself.

“Melissa Gustin,” Marley offers, with a smile.

A perfectly arched brow rises puzzlingly, but she extends the same courtesy, “Elizabeth Hammer.”

With the sparse light spilling into the room, highlighting Elizabeth’s sharp cheekbones and cracked lips, deep down Marley knows something’s bothering Elizabeth to the point she’s seeking _something_ from a stranger. What nightmares terrifies Elizabeth so much, Marley isn’t sure if she wants to know.

And yet, the curiosity bubbles within her. And she says, “I have all night. As do you, apparently. Let’s trade stories.”

It piques Elizabeth’s interest. “Of what?”

Marley shrugs. “Don’t know. You have a lot on your plate, Mrs. Hammer.”

Her blue eyes, haunted and circles underneath them, linger briefly on the diamond ring on her finger. “What is there to talk about? My story is all over the press.”

“So as mine. But honestly, you can’t trust everything you read in the papers.”

There’s a beat of silence tangled with disbelief. What are the odds two women crossed paths, each with a personal grudge against the press? Not very high. Marley scoots closer, lips pursed in thought. Elizabeth Hammer is a fake name, just like Melissa Gustin is.

“Guess we’re both at the mercy of 3Ps then,” Elizabeth chuckles, hollow and forced. Runs her fingers through golden hair, styled in a flapper-esque cut, or a messier version of it.

“3Ps?”

“Public, press and police.”

“Sounds about right.”

Marley is usually the talker. Always have something to say. Even when she’s with Sebastian. And maybe, this time, she just wants to listen. And Elizabeth doesn’t strike her as a talker. Marley knows how cathartic talking can be, even if the listener is a stranger. What’s better than a stranger without set judgements to lend an ear?

All Elizabeth Hammer needs is a nudge. Marley will give it to her. She starts first, “Who is Warren?”

“He is—was my husband,” Elizabeth replies, stares into a distance Marley can’t reach. Shakes her head softly, “You wouldn’t want to waste your time on a woman like me.”

Marley retorts, “Let me be the judge of that. Not the press. Not the public. Or the police. After all, it’s hard to get unbiased ears now these days,” takes Elizabeth’s slender fingers in hers, and smiles genuinely in a very long time.

“I need something stronger than water,” Elizabeth says, getting to her feet. Her periwinkle nightgown shimmers underneath the dim light, with each step the blonde woman takes. She’s slim—almost waif-like and exceptionally taller than the average female and _male_ population. Though she hunches a little, she can’t be any shorter than six-two.

Elizabeth breaks out two crystalline glasses and a bottle of bourbon. Pours generous amounts of bourbon into the glasses and hands one to Marley. Leans back against the puffy pillows. Even in the darkness, her pallor stands out, like a Grecian statue. 

Marley looks down on her glass, amber liquid swirling in anti-clock wise motion. This could very well be the first (and the last) her lips taste expensive bourbon not even Sebastian could buy. Here it goes, she drinks a sip and asks, “Now, how did you two meet?”

Elizabeth swallows several sips of her bourbon. Props an arm over the pillows. Biting her lower lip, she stares at the diamond ring encasing a pale finger, and takes a deep breath. All that happens in a blink, and she’s back to carving flawless—practiced—smile on her porcelain face.

“Actually, his father set us up.”


End file.
